A Gas Station in the Mojave
by Hobbeslover13
Summary: A Collection of Chronological Fallout: New Vegas Short Stories involving a rather unique Courier. Rated T for now, rating is subject to change.
1. Chapter 1

**Story One : Home on the Range**

Disclaimer : Just a little idea I had, hope it evolves into something more over time. I don't own Fallout: New Vegas, nor do I intend to monetize this story now or ever.

The man's eye-lids slowly opened, sliding over his dark-blue orbs. He instinctively closed them, blinded by the harsh sunlight that penetrated his weatherbeaten sun cover. The El Dorado Gas & Service Station was not exactly his ideal haunt, but it served its purpose better than he had hoped. The previous night had been a rough one; he had fended off a fire ant attack on his way down the road towards Boulder City.

He quite liked the little gas station - not because of the service box, with its indoor rest area, but because of the atmosphere the station provided. The Courier was a frontiersman, of sorts. He had slept under the station covering, staring up at the stars through the worn holes in the metal. There was something oddly comforting about sleeping in a sleeping bag on the range. It gave him a warm feeling.

The Courier held up his arm lazily above his head, blocking the stray sunbeams from his eyes. His Pip-Boy 3000 activated, its motion and facial recognition sensors detecting the Courier's face. After a brief scan, the Courier was shown his vital signs - He felt good, very good, if a bit thirsty, and a tad bit on the famished side. The pipboy displayed a full health bar, and a few ticks past mild dehydration and mild starvation on his food and water bars.

The Courier drank a bottle of purified water while gnawing on the fire ant meat he had harvested earlier, squatting in an undignified manner next to his sleeping bag. He slowly drew his revolver from his holster.

It was a .357 Magnum revolver - the Courier had stolen it from Trudy's Prospector Saloon after he had woken up in Goodsprings - and it was a thing of beauty. He had bought modifiers from Chet's store after helping the townspeople fend off the powder ganger attack, and it was now sporting an 8" long barrel and a heavy duty cylinder. He spun the cylinder around, marveling at how the dust swirled in a unmappable pattern. It was well-worn, but it was his revolver, and he loved it dearly.

The Courier took out a cloth, and spit on it. He then rubbed the cloth on the tarnished steel of the revolver, wiping many days-worth of grime away with one swipe. The revolver was restored. What once was a dusty piece of junk was now a well-groomed killing machine.

The Courier checked his pack. He had 24 shots of regular .357 ammunition, and 7 hollow-point rounds. He sighed. He couldn't remember if he'd fired 2, or 3 shots last night in his brief conflict with the giant fire ant. Flipping open the cylinder, he spun it, slowly checking for missing bullets. There were 2 missing.

"I hate it when they don't add to a full clip," the Courier grumbled to nobody.

Sighing once again, the Courier stood up, and dusted off his legs. The sand, whipped up by the harsh Mohave winds, whipped around his shins, curling off of his armored form. Without warning, the Courier pointed his gun in the air, rapidly fanning 4 shots.

"I hate it when they don't add up to a full clip," the Courier grumbled again. The wind whistled. The Courier glared into the wind. It was laughing at him, and yet he could do nothing to hurt it.

At least he now had even rounds, the Courier mused to himself. Except for the hollow-points. But those are different; to fire those off would just be wasting useful ammo, not to mention pointlessly damaging his gun.

The Courier sat back down. He mumbled to himself quietly as he reloaded his revolver.

1 bullet.

"Should have picked up Boone at Novac, at least he would have been good company."

2 bullets.

"At least with him and his sniper skills taking care of those damn ferals over at REPCONN would have been a breeze."

3 bullets.

"Why did he have to be such a fuckin' snot though?"

4 bullets.

"We get it, your wife died and now you have to be all dark and broody. Boo hoo!"

5 bullets.

"Okay, so maybe I shouldn't have said that. But honestly, there's nobody around to tell me otherwise, so who the hell cares?"

6 bullets.

"Finally, now that that's over with, I can take off."

After a quick look in his duffle sack (he now had 18 bullets in storage with his 7 hollow-points), he stood up, looped his sack over his shoulders, and began his trek down the misshapen highway, the scorching sun beating down onto his weathered leather back.

The Courier squinted. Off in the distance he could see some of those damn ants again. They were flaming some poor… poor… he couldn't tell. Whatever it was, he would hate to be them. The Courier kept walking.

But, what if there were valuables?

The Courier wasn't quite a kleptomaniac, but rather more of a neophiliac. He didn't care much for stealing, although occasionally he would partake in it; it was a distasteful action in his mind, but he truly couldn't resist items of interest. That there might be an object of some worth in or around whatever poor victim the ants were after was simply too much.

The Courier flipped the clip open on his holster, and in a single smooth motion un-holstered his revolver. Taking aim at the closest of the two ants roasting the no unidentifiable corpse, he squeezed off a single shot.

"Aimed Shot! Eyes! Crit. Hit!" The Courier's Pip-Boy 3000 beeped excitably.

The ant fell over dead, a bullet wound through its leftmost eye. The Courier was somewhat grossed out by the hole that suddenly appeared among the catacombed orb, but shook himself out of it. Feeling the vibrations in the air from the bullet, the second ant turned to the Courier. Walking towards it, the Courier began to rapidly fan his revolver, catching it once in the head, in the foremost legs twice, its rightmost antenna, and one of the ant's mandibles. The fire ant fell forwards, felled.

The Courier walked onwards, waving away the smoke to reveal a burnt and slightly devoured pack brahmin corpse. He wrinkled his nose at the stench; the brahmin's ribs and intestines were exposed. Further investigation of the giant fire ant corpses showed that the ants had been carrying away parts of the brahmin. But for what reason?

The Courier heard chittering. Turning around, he was greeted by the sight of no less than 15 giant fire ants, accompanied by two giant soldier fire ants.

His hand immediately went to his gun.

He pointed it, and it clicked. Pulling the trigger faster now, he was greeted by more clicks. It was unloaded - he had used up his bullets on the second ant.

He remembered how many bullets he had left. 18 regulars, and 7 hollow-points.

It was going to be a long night, and it wasn't even 0900 hours.

The Courier had two words to describe his situation.

"Oh SHIT!"

* * *

The Courier plopped down in front of the campfire in front of a Sunset Sarsaparilla billboard. He was exhausted, broken, and to no small extent, burnt. He set up his sleeping bag, and lay on top of it.

The man he was sharing the fire with was sitting on a weathered log, slowly strumming his acoustic guitar. The man was wearing a sort of weathered duster, with a blackened desperado cowboy hat. His handlebar mustache gave him a sort of thuggish look, but his softer facial features demonstrated a different sort of sophistication.

"What's your story, stranger?" The Courier asked.

"My story's a long one, friend, and I can't say it's all that interesting," the man replied. He had quite the charismatic voice, the Courier noted. It was an interesting contrast with his ruggish get-up, but certainly fit with the guitar. He decided that it would be a nice thing, to fall asleep to the man's voice. It would be best to get him started talking.

"Nevertheless, I'm interested."

"Well, I was born in a little town out Montana way. Me and Ma didn't have…"

The Courier felt himself drift off, his eyes shutting as the man rambled on, blissfully unaware. It was the end to another day, another day of chasing Benny, another day of suffering, another day of living. It was just another day home. Another day, home on the range.


	2. Chapter 2

**Story Two : Orange Colored Sky**

Disclaimer : I don't own Fallout: New Vegas, nor do I intend to monetize this story now or ever.

Somewhere on his trek along the El Dorado Highway, the Courier had gotten lost. Getting lost, for the Courier, was a common experience, but almost never a pleasant one.

"Where the fuck am I?" The Courier wondered aloud. He squinted, glaring up at the sun. It beat down on him, the harsh rays penetrating the limited sun-cover his beret (he'd stolen one from Boone while he was in Novac) provided. The sun seemed to be the brightest here that the Courier had ever experienced.

The Courier stopped walking. He was tired, not to mention frustrated. He'd d hoped his Pip-Boy 3000 would have gotten the directions right for once, but, like it seemed so often to be, he was held back by his own directional shortcomings. He had followed his compass (the marker indicated to him to head southeast) and it had lead him to… the middle of fucking nowhere.

The Courier looked up, finally seeing what was in front of him.

"Woah! What is that, some sort of…?"

It was an odd cluster of structures. Many panels were layered, back and forth in rows, facing away from him. They seemed to stretch on for miles around the centermost structure. In the center of the half-ellipse was a ginormous browned concrete structure. It had all manners of pipes and exhaust stacks coming out of it; both the top, as well as the side facing the Courier. In front of the center building was a large control tower of sorts, with a disk at the top. To the left of the control tower and the center building was a smaller enclosed set of electrical contraptions. All around the complex, NCR soldiers were present; walking, talking amongst themselves, practicing at a pseudo-firing range, and sleeping.

The Courier was instantly intrigued.

Running towards the complex, he was stopped from going through only by the fencing that surrounded it. He pressed his face up to the fence, his nose poking through the wiring in the chainlinks.

"Hey man, what's up? What is this place?" He rasped, his comment directed towards one of two NCR soldiers patrolling inside the complex.

The NCR soldier stumbled, surprised to see the haggard man with a dust-beaten leather jacket and a red beret talking to him. The soldier squinted, making out the insignia on his beret: 'The Last Thing You Never See'. The soldier was floored; it wasn't every day one got to talk to a First Recon sharpshooter!

"Well, sir, it's… it's classified, but I'll let you in on a little secret."

The Courier leaned in a little closer, turning his head so that his ear stuck through the fence. The soldier was momentarily taken aback by the combination of dust, phlegm, and blood that matted his sideburns, but nevertheless leaned forwards to whisper in his ear.

"It's some sort of power plant, sir, only we're having some trouble getting it to work. We have a scientist in the lab working on it right now!"

The Courier said thanks and began walking to the left. As he was walking, he pondered the reasoning the soldier had for giving away such a important secret. He took his beret off, waving it on his face as perspiration dripped off his brow. The insignia caught his eye.

Chortling, the Courier kept walking, now with a bit of a skip in his step. What a day it was to be a thief! Not, of course, that the Courier was a thief; he was a good person, wasn't he?

The information about the power plant though, now this was interesting news! Prior misgivings and mistakes forgotten, he trundled onwards along the fence line, moving ever so steadily towards the entrance of the plant.

Now several hundred feet behind him, the two soldiers turned to each other.

"You think he's going to go ask the Lieutenant if he can help out?"

"Nah, he's probably some nobody with no experience whatsoever"

The two soldiers looked at eachother and burst out laughing. Of course a First Recon sharpshooter would know what he was doing.

* * *

"What do you mean, 'No Civilians Inside'? Don't you believe I have a brother stationed here?"

"I'm sorry sir, I just find it hard to believe," The NCR Lieutenant sighed in exasperation. "Why don't you ask some of the boys stationed out here? I just can't let you in to wander freely around the plant."

The Courier turned, fuming. Given his luck he shouldn't have been surprised that the hat trick didn't work twice. This had been his big chance, but alas, it seemed it was not to be. He started to walk away, but remembered just in time that he had walked past a rusty metal sliding door on his way around the plant to the front. He began his walk back around the plant, now walking with a purpose.

"Odd guy," one of the NCR soldiers standing behind a sandbag entrenchment quipped, after the man with the beat-up leather jacket and red beret had disappeared from view.

"That he is," the Lieutenant replied. "That he is."

* * *

His tongue sticking out, the Courier finally heard a click. It was a nice click, a beautiful click, the sound of the bobby pins FINALLY doing their job. The metal sliding door slid open with an audible 'shoom', sending the broken bobby pins that sat in a pile next to the Courier askew.

It wasn't the Courier's fault that his Pip-Boy 3000 called the lock 'Very Easy' and as a result he got cocky and wasted - he counted - 37 bobby pins on it. It was just a misfortune of his, he decided. One of many.

The Courier slowly crept inside the open hatch, watching his surroundings carefully, his eyes traveling over the metallic grey floor illuminated by the light spilling inside. Dust curled in the air lazily, stirred up by the abrupt change in the immediate environment.

He stopped, waiting for a second. Pressing his ear to the wall, and then to the ground, the Courier listened for footsteps, or chatter; any sign that the NCR soldiers present within the power plant were aware of his presence. Detecting none, he turned to the sliding door and inn one swift motion slammed it shut.

His boots banging loudly against the grated floor, the Courier made his way down the hallway. Coming to the end of the hall, he peeked out from behind the wall, first to the left.

No NCR soldiers.

Then to the right.

No NCR soldiers.

The Courier turned right, whistling a jaunty tune. He stuck his hands in his twin back pockets, and sauntered down the next hallway. In front of him were a set of stairs, which he happily clambered up. At the top he was treated with a wonderful view of - the Courier looked out the windows of the strange tin box he had found himself in - metal, pipes, turbines, and more metal! The Courier was more overjoyed than the time he had broken into Doc Mitchell's chem stash.

He sat and pondered for a second his sudden and unexplainable happiness. The Courier came to a start as he realized he had ingested a couple of his own personal Party Time Mentats stores before walking into the plant.

Oh well, he thought to himself. Might as well make the most of it.

Continuing along the raised metal canister, the Courier found himself at the set of another metal stairs, this time going back down. Had he gone up these to begin with? Briefly confused, he glanced back, checking, and to his surprise there were stairs leading down behind him as well. Deciding to just 'go with the flow', the Courier made his way down the stairs.

* * *

The Courier stumbled into a room past yet another pair of cots. The room was filled with panels, computer boards, and other technological junk.

A man approached the Courier. He was wearing a white stained lab coat with a suit on underneath. The man lifted his sunglasses to the top of his head, where they were held in place by his brown locks of hair, neatly pulled back in a ponytail. His unkempt facial hair complimented the slightly manic glint in his eye.

"Yo."

The Courier paused, caught flat-footed by the man's unprofessional greeting, but the Party Time Mentats in him replied for him.

"Hey man, what sort of job are you here for?"

"What else? I'm in charge. This whole operation depends on me. No Fantastic, no power. Got the whole NCR suckling my teats, and it feels so good."

Put off slightly by the man's change of speech from the third to first person, and the high pitched whine he projected, the Courier pondered the information he had received. On one hand, the man was not displaying intelligence through his word choices, but on the other hand, he was quite obviously the man in charge. It might be best for him to get more information out of the man, before he spoke more.

"So, what exactly do you do?"

Fuck man, everything. I push buttons. I turn dials. I read numbers. Sometimes I make up little stories in my head about what the numbers mean."

Fantastic continued on, oblivious to the Courier's increasingly exasperated face.

"Like one time I imagined they were a code to get into a vault full of naked women. Man, how cool would that be?"

"So you have absolutely no idea what you're doing," the Courier interjected.

"No, man. I know exactly what I'm doing. I just don't know what effect it's going to have. Over there controls power in this building. That station has readouts on the computer network. That big knob there makes a crazy noise. Sparks come out of that slot if you put stuff in it. And I'm learning more every day."

The Courier thought about this for a moment. He still didn't know what the obviously mentally handicapped man was doing, but it had to be something important.

"So uh, what exactly are you trying to accomplish here?"

"Well, see, we're getting power, because the guy running this place is Fantastic. But the mirrors outside aren't aimed right, so we're running at one percent efficiency. And I guess that just isn't good enough for some assholes. Trouble is, most of the controls for this place aren't here - they're in the tower. And that place has some crazy Pre-War security system that the dumbshit NCR set off when they took over. Killed two guys. Now they won't go near it. They want me to make an omelet, but I can't break any of their eggs, know what I'm saying?"

Taken aback by the rather unconventional response, the Courier picked up on a few key facts. Firstly, there was trouble - killer security. Secondly, there was something to do - a menial task like resetting mirrors? How hard could that be?

And thirdly, he smelled caps, and an idiot dumb enough to part with them.

"Well, it sounds as though you have quite the job on your hands. Perhaps I could help you out? " He sardonically grinned at Fantastic. "A… mutual agreement of sorts could be beneficial to the two of us."

Fantastic, oblivious to the danger that accompanied a deal with the devil, nodded his head energetically.

"Like, if you could just fiddle with the controls for the mirrors for me, they gotta be redirected to the tower so that they work properly. If you do that, I would be so stoked!"

The Courier looked at him expectantly.

"I'll put in a good word with the NCR man!" Fantastic hastily added.

The Courier continued to gaze at the man.

"And 100 caps for your troubles!"

That was decidedly enough for the Courier, who turned to exit.

"Oh, one more thing!" Fantastic shouted after him.

"Make sure you reroute the power to the strip and McCarran! If it goes somewhere else the NCR will have your head and Fantastic will be down one premium special helper!"

Shaking his head, the Courier walked off, only to be slammed into the wall by another man wearing a white lab coat.

As the man stepped back, the Courier noticed a few minute details: The freshly cleaned lab coat, a generally stern composure, the man's softer composition and stature, and his freshly groomed hair.

"It's unusual to see a new face around here. Are you a soldier, or a scientist?"

The Courier was floored. The man, despite his violent handling of the Courier, had spoken with a voice completely devoid of emotion.

"More of a drifter, I suppose?" He uttered after a moment of hesitation.

The man's stern facial features softened, briefly.

"I see. Then you must have some special business here, for them to have let you through."

"Well, it isn't really like that. You see, I'm more of a… I was curious."

"Interesting. Forgive me for prying, but I'm a little curious as well. Are you with a particular group?"

Deciding not to humour him with a straight answer, the Courier simply responded, "I try not to get involved."

"Ah, but there's no avoiding it. You can only outrun the choice for so long. Take now, for instance. You are inside a facility with lost technology, some of it very dangerous. Unless you turn and leave right now, you'll be very much involved in the lives of people you've never seen or met."

The Courier sighed. So, he was one of those types. The preachers, the 'Do-Gooders', everything the Courier despised. Everything the Courier was not.

"Well yes, of course it is dangerous here. Why wouldn't it be? Where do we live, after all?"

The man, ignorant to the Courier's exasperation, pressed onwards.

"Hey, I heard you talking to that bumbling fool about activating the power grid. It could get difficult if he ever got past fiddling with the intercom system, but thankfully, he's convinced that the largest panel simply must be the most important panel. I have a very important job that only you can do."

Nodding, the Courier motioned for the man to proceed.

"The Followers of the Apocalypse have reason to believe that this plant could be used to fuel a superweapon. I do not know how, nor do I wish to know how, but it is our utmost duty to prevent this possibility. Do you understand? Should you find your way to the motherboard, you simply must direct the power away from the plant. The entire region would be preferable, just so long as you do not give the plant potential as a superweapon."

"I will," the Courier promised. He began, once again, to walk away. The man had no reason to believe the Courier; but then, he has no reason to believe otherwise.

Hopped up on his Party Time Mentats, the Courier skipped out the door, and into the browned-and-blackened courtyard.

* * *

An explosion rang out as a bullet, one of the Courier's precious hollow-points, found itself firmly lodged in the final dog's skull. There had been three dogs guarding the final terminal designated with redirecting the solar-panel-mirror things. The Courier couldn't decide exactly what they were, other than just plain annoying. He had already almost blown himself up redirecting them(the first terminal had had mines surrounding it in hidden places) and was not keen on challenging more of the defenses.

Making his way back towards the main complex, he noticed that his Pip-Boy 3000 had marked an area farther away from the entrance to the first chamber, one directly underneath the tower that held the large satellite dish.

He made his way over to it, and opened the door, slowly walking inside. The cold air was a welcome change from the sweltering heat of the wasteland.

A whirring noise rang out, and out of the corner of his eye he saw twin ceiling-mounted turrets focus on him. With the abrupt click that, to his horror, he recognized as the first round feeding into the firing chamber, the Courier leapt out of the way of the incoming bursts of fire, rolling his way into a room across from the entrance. As he came out of his roll, he recognized many objects in his immediate area - mines!. He quickly grabbed all the mines closest to him as they began to beep, slowly, but picking up speed. Stepping out, he had a wonderful view of a sentry bot triplet making their way up the grated slopes of the metal scaffolding. Yelping, the Courier began chucking the activated mines like frisbees, catching the bewildered sentry bots on the chest.

With a quick explosion, the sentry bots were downed. The Courier began to make his way out of the room, but hearing the telltale sign of turrets ducked back in. Thinking fast, he went to the nearby terminal and quickly logged in with a keycode he found helpfully written on the side of the monitor. Noticing the entry 'Turret Controls', he selected it and deactivated the turrets.

The Courier collapsed on the ground, exhausted. He didn't know how or even if he could get through this gauntlet of death. He had almost died in the recent conflict - only out of pure luck had he survived. He closed his eyes, and went to sleep.

* * *

Opening his eyes, the Courier checked his Pip-Boy 3000. A couple hours had passed since he had fallen asleep - it was now about 18:00. As he sat up, he saw a hidden treasure - grenades!

Swiping and pocketing them, the Courier made his way down the steel scaffolding. The rest of this job would be a breeze.

* * *

"Bzzt."

"Bzzzzzzt."

The Courier was mouthing to himself as he pushed two wire ends together, trying desperately to make ends meet. The mainframe terminal was displaying a constant 'Error' message, and he desperately wanted to finish things up.

Finally, electricity sparked through the wire ends, and the terminal lit up. Making his way over to the terminal, the Courier amiably hummed to himself as he scrolled through the power output options.

" McCarran and the Strip… that would help Fantastic. Fremont and Westside… aren't those the slums? Full Region… that sounds like something that scientist guy would like… ARCHIMEDES II?"

The Courier paused, reading more into it.

"...A planetary defense system."

As thoughts of Fantastic and the other strange man in a lab coat left the Courier's head, he pressed down on the select option.

Another option popped up, replacing the initial options.

'Arm ARCHIMEDES Plant Defense System'

Without a pause, the Courier selected the option, before making his way up to the top floor of the complex. As he exited the door to the tower, the Courier felt excitement ripple over him.

It was showtime.

* * *

At 21:00, the ground around the plant shook, burning bright red. Around the plant, all things susceptible to heat had disintegrated; all that were left were the solar panels, made to withstand the beating sun. Any evidence of NCR involvement on the plant had all but disappeared, swallowed by the sudden beam of sunlight.

The Courier walked, and with him walked the power of the gods. As he made his way, once again, into the treacherous wastes, he was reminded of the power that the old world had held. He learned to be wary once again. He learned to be wary of an Orange Colored Sky.


	3. Chapter 3

**Story Three : Sit and Dream**

Disclaimer : I don't own Fallout: New Vegas, nor do I intend to monetize this story now or ever.

Dust curled up, wafting slowly up into the darkened sky of the Mojave desert. Illuminated a rusty brown color in the starlight of the moon, the dust settled in the air, blanketing the large expanse of treacherous waste.

Below, a gecko scampered across the barren plains. The creaking of some unknown creatures echoed throughout the sands, reverberating off of the scorched red rocks that littered the landscape.

Curled up next to a tire bonfire in the middle of nowhere, the Courier drew his sleeping bag upon himself, and, with no great deliberation, settled for a nice nap after a long day of travel.

* * *

The Courier awoke, slowly, to take in his surroundings.

Frankly, he had no idea where he was. After his escapades at the NCR's Helios One outpost, the Courier had wandered aimlessly. He hadn't had to deal with more than the first NCR death squad, to which he'd explained his folly. They had told him quite plainly then, that if he didn't want to be killed he would have to do his best to get back into good favor with the NCR. The Courier, unwilling to be another nameless body in the uninhabitable wastes, agreed.

But where was he to go? How could he do that?

These were all questions the Courier had been wondering, as he wandered. He was nearly without food - he had taken to savaging the few geckos he had come across - but more importantly, he was almost out of water. His mint-condition Vault 13 souvenir cantine that was mysteriously always full had began to come out at a dribble whenever he took a swig.

It was worrisome to the Courier.

And so he packed his bag up, rolling the sleeping bag into a nice enough lump, and, with the bonfire tire, resecured it with zip ties to his backpack. With all of his miscellaneous camping equipment packed, the Courier turned and, once again, started walking.

He made his way along the barren land, over and around the flattened, cracked orange Earth that surrounded him. Underneath him, his black leather combat boots slowly began to bleach, running ragged as dust seeped into the cracked animal hide.

The Courier frustratedly looked up from his slowly deteriorating boots, and saw in front of him a road. He was at an intersection; the road bisected his pathway cutting through the apocalyptic wastes, a section of inconceivable order among the chaos. The Courier stopped for a second, thinking, before turning left and walking along the road. In spite of his instincts telling him to go straight, he understood that the road was his best bet at surviving.

The sun beat down, scorching the browning earth around the blackened asphalt. He slowly meandered along the stretch of highway, taking in his lacklustre surroundings. There were no ant mounds, no NCR soldiers. He gazed off into the distance, picking out the white, sun-bleached bones of a poor soul who had sunned himself for too long.

"That could be me if I don't pick my pace up," the Courier mused to himself, gently. It wouldn't do, in spite of his words of wisdom, to waste too much energy making his way to an uncertain destination. It was possible, he understood, that he might run out of water more rapidly if he were to go faster than his light walking pace. It was something he'd read about in a dusty self-maintenance manual that was missing its cover and around half of the pages once - one that belonged to a weird character, one named 'Chryslus'. In spite of the personalized _self-maintenance_ the book lent itself out to, he'd noticed that most of the described information applied to him just as well as it must have to 'Chryslus'.

The Courier continued his path down the treacherous road. He slowly passed a street sign, his lips silently spelling out the words. 'Highway 93 - Highway 95 Exit in 1 Mile'. He grinned, softly taking in the success he had found along his trip down the charcoal black road. He may not be there yet, but soon enough he would make it, and surely with the intersection he would find civilization, life, and dare he say it, water.

Pulling his Pip-Boy up to his face as he walked, the Courier checked his vital signs, flicking absentmindedly through a myriad of screens before coming across the diagram of his body with effects labeled to the side. His signs indicated Advanced Dehydration as well as Minor Starvation, a fact confirmed by the overwhelming thirst that accompanied his dry throat, as well as his slowly but surely rumbling stomach.

He trudged onwards, towards the now visibly illuminated overpass. He could make out little dots, figures scurrying around in a lackadaisical manner atop the overpass that accompanied the exit off of Highway 93. They appeared in no hurry, and the Courier was excited to be among company who might be able to tell him a place to go to fix up his situation with the NCR. He looked back, expecting to see nothing but the dry expanse of desert wasteland surrounding the dirtied charcoal road.

Instead, he was treated to the sight of a far away - perhaps 400 feet - but still closing trio of men wearing a collection of leather and metallic bits. Their handheld weapons, barely visible, glinted, reflecting sunlight off and into the vast region of sand between them and the Courier.

The Courier picked up his pace, determined to make up the distance to the overpass before he was caught in the gang of three's fire without cover. His ability to scrounge for cover would do nothing in the hilless abomination of terrain he was currently traversing.

A bullet whipped past, a long whistle in the air that ended with a satisfying plunk into the sand beside the Courier. More followed, and soon the Courier was running as rocky turf kicked up to his right and left, more victims of his enemies' mighty barrage.

A bullet made its way into the Courier's hamstring, and then another followed into his right shoulder blade. The force of twin 9mm destructive ordinance tossed the Courier like a rag doll, his blood spilling out and dotting the ground like a coffee spill on printer paper.

The Courier got up and continued running.

His pursuers followed.

The Courier made it to the bottom of the overpass, and leaped over the concrete guard rail. He began to scream bloody murder at the fuzzy figures atop the multi-lane concrete bridge.

"Help me! What are you doing!? I'm injured!"

With his words, a lone figure raced down the concrete hill from the wooden picnic tables beside the metal-and-scrap concrete shack. The Courier, relieved to be receiving aid, turned and pulled his tarnished nickel-plated .357 revolver from his holster, cocking it in a single action. He stood up, striking an imposing figure as he leapt on top of the concrete barricade. His desert cloak swirled in the desert wind, the blood stains peppering his leather jacket in unreadable pattern after the two hits he had taken.

The sun sets in the West over the great El Dorado Dry Lake, illuminated an anarchic god, his silhouette stretching far and wide as it covered the ever desolate desert. Three shots rang out, and blood sprayed from the back of the trio of marauders' heads. Bran matter splattered, painting the sand beneath them red and grey, before their still warm corpses muddled and churned the beastial visage.

The demon grinned then, his white teeth an unnatural beacon in the darkness that surrounded him. His laughter was chillingly malevolent, echoing as he fell backwards off of his concrete perch. He was now a crumpled heap at the bottom of the overpass, the blood loss depleting his brain of the oxygen necessary to stay standing.

* * *

The Courier awoke, slowly but surely. He kept his eyes closed as he reached about him with his other senses. He was laying on top of some sort of fabric that was laying atop the chipped blacktop. His wounds were healed up. He could tell because of the strange tightness present in his leg and shoulder. The new scar tissue, two round raised gashes, felt like a knot that he couldn't rub out.

The Courier breathed in the scent of burning mole rat meat, and opened his eyes, taking in the night sky. He let all thoughts of water and food leave him, as he watched the acrid smoke curl up, lazily circling the blood red moon as it sat in the air above the grand Mojave Desert, an illuminating beam along the great craggy cliffs and ravaged rocks of the wasteland. The Courier let himself slip, slowly again, into unconsciousness, letting another day go. He drifted off, Sitting and Dreaming.


End file.
